The Seven Steps Of Corruption

If a Master's Teachings are perfect, why are they corrupted in
time?

Anand Ravi,
It
is something very essential to understand, because it has
always
happened and it is going to happen always in the future too. There
is not
going to be any change. Every teaching is bound to be corrupted; it
is in
the very nature of things. Just as every child is to become old one
day and
everyone who is born is going to die one day, each teaching is out
of
necessity bound to be corrupted. It cannot be avoided. It is not
that the
great Masters have not tried; they have tried their best, but you
cannot go
against the laws of nature. Nobody can go against the laws of
nature.

There are seven things to be taken note of:

First Stage

The first is the experience of the Master himself. When he
experiences the
truth there is no mind at all. It is a state of no-mind, or as
Dionysius
will call it, a state of agnosia - absolute innocence; not even a
single
thought moves in the mind. Hence the memory system is not
functioning; the
mind is in a complete state of non-functioning. It is frozen, it is
absolutely still.
This is the moment when the teaching is perfect, but nothing has
been
taught. The teaching has not yet become teaching. Nothing has been
said,
nothing has been heard. In fact, even the Master is not yet aware of
what
has happened. Something has happened, but he is simply so lost in it
that
there is no possibility of him becoming aware of it. To be aware of
something means division, the observer and the observed; the
experience has
become split. When the experience happens it is indivisible. There
is no
knower and no known, no subject, no object. All is silent. This is
the most
perfect teaching.

Second Stage

The second stage is when the Master becomes aware of what has
happened - corruption has begun, even inside the Master. He has not said a
single
word, but a vague awareness has started arising in him. The
experience is
no more undivided, it is divided, it has gone from one to two. It is
no
more the same, it is not the whole. Part of it has become
subjectivity -
the knower, the observer, the awareness - and the other part has
become
the object, the known, the experienced. This is the first corruption,
and
it happens inside the Master.

Third Stage

The third is: the Master formulates his experience; he starts making
it
more clear, more expressible. Now there are not only two but three
things.
The one is divided into three: the subject, the object and the mind,
because without the mind nothing can be made articulate. The mind is
the
expert. Language has to be used, logic has to be used. The mind has
to be
awakened from its deep sleep; the mind has to be called forth. Just
as one
day the Master had struggled hard to put the mind into a deep-frozen
state,
now he struggles hard to unfreeze it, because without it there is no
possibility of being absolutely clear about what has happened. It
has to be
conceptualized.
Now, the moment the ultimate experience becomes conceptualized a
great
corruption happens, because the wordless is being forced into the
word. And
words are small things, and the experience is as vast as the sky -
even
the sky is not its limit. The unlimited has to be brought within
limits.
Naturally much will be lost.
First it was the whole sky with all the
stars,
with all its infinity and eternity. Now it is only a small window
with a
frame, a man-made frame. Now you are looking through the window: it
is no
more the whole sky but just a small piece of it.

Fourth Stage

And the fourth thing to be understood is the expression. Out of
great
compassion, out of love, the Master would like to share with others
what
has happened, because he can see millions of people groping in the
dark in
the same way as he was groping one day. He can see everybody groping
in the
same darkness, with the same confusion, with the same misery, and
now he is
in a state where he can help. At least he can indicate the way, at
least he
can show something of the beyond. He can make something transpire,
he can
trigger some process.
He has to use the art of synchronicity. He has to sing the song so
your
song which is in the seed starts moving, becomes alert, comes out of
its
dormant state, starts reaching towards the sky - so that your seed
is
broken, so that your song also starts having a longing. Your heart
has to
be touched.
The Master speaks, but the moment he speaks even more is lost,
because to
conceptualize within yourself is one thing; to communicate it to
somebody
else is totally different. Now you have to look at the other person,
at
what he can understand; only that can be said. You have to come to
the
lowest possibility because that's where people exist. You have to
use
language which they can understand.
The Buddha cannot use the language which only other Buddhas can
understand.
He has reached the sunlit peak, but he has to come back; he has to
descend
back into the darkness of the valley. He has to use your language,
your
expressions, your ways of saying things. And naturally, almost
ninety-nine
percent is lost; only one percent is expressed, and that too needs a
very
skillful Master. Not all the Masters have been able to express even
the one
percent; many have remained silent seeing that they have no skill.
When I decided to become a teacher in the university, a few of my
friends
who were aware of what had happened to me asked me, "What are you
going to do?"
I said, "It will be good if I can be a teacher for a few years, it
will
help me tremendously: it will give me the skill. Now I have
something to
express, I have something to share, but the skill is needed.
The
best
teacher is one who can help the last person hearing him, the lowest
in
intelligence, to understand. Of course the best ones will understand
easily, but you have to keep aware of those who are not that
intelligent."
And humanity, the greater part of humanity, is not intelligent at
all. It
lives in a very stupid way; it lives in mediocrity. Its
consciousness is so
much covered with dust and rust that its mirroring quality is
completely
lost. It cannot reflect anything, it cannot echo anything. Great
skill is
needed; only then can one percent of the experience be expressed.

Fifth Stage

And the fifth thing is the hearing of the experience. Now that the
Master
has spoken he is no more the master of what he has spoken. Now the
person
who has heard becomes the master of it; now it is his possession. Up
to now
the corruption was happening inside the Master, because he was
bringing it
to the level of the mind. Once he has spoken then it enters into a
mind
which has never experienced anything of the unknown, anything of the
beyond. In the very entry, out of that one percent almost ninety
percent is
lost. It is bound to be so because everybody understands things in
his own
way, according to his own conditioning, his past experiences, his
philosophy, his religion, his ideology.
Nobody hears in silence. If you hear in silence, then there is a
possibility you may be able to get hold of the one percent, and that
is
enough for you to be transformed. Once a small flame enters into you,
the
whole forest will be afire soon. That one percent is enough. It is
pure
fire! It Will make you afire.
But even that one percent never enters. It enters only into those
who are
devotees, who are totally devoted to the Master, who have no
conditions, no
barriers, who are almost like shadows, who have effaced themselves
completely.

Sixth Stage

Otherwise, ordinarily the sixth thing is bound to
happen: the
interpretation. The person who hears is going to interpret it. The
moment
your mind comes across any word it immediately interprets it; it
cannot
allow it to remain as it is.
Looking at a rose flower your mind immediately says, "A beautiful
flower!"
You cannot resist the temptation of saying it. You may not say it to
anybody, but deep inside you have said it to yourself: "What a
beautiful
flower!" You could not remain silent with this beauty.
Interpretation is
bound to happen.
Now you are here - Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Jainas,
Buddhists,
Parsis, Sikhs - all kinds of ideologies, all kinds of philosophies
are
there in your minds. Whenever you hear something you will give it
your
color. Then not even point one percent is left. What to say about
one percent? - not even point one percent is left. It has become so
diluted,
so contaminated that it is almost something else.

Seventh Stage

And there is the seventh possibility: the moment the hearer starts
telling
it to others, what he has heard... All the Buddhist sutras begin
with: "I
have heard the Blessed One say this...." Buddha never wrote a book,
neither
did Christ nor Lao Tzu; they all depended on the spoken word. There
is a
reason for it: because while I am speaking, the word is one thing,
but the
pauses are far more pregnant, the silences are far more meaningful;
my
gestures may touch your heart more easily than my words. My words
are bound
to go into your memory system; they will revolve there. But my
presence, my
eyes can penetrate you far more deeply.
Hence all the great Masters have used the spoken word. Nobody has
ever
written a book, and I don't think they are ever going to write a
book. The
moment you write something it becomes dead. The moment you say
something it
is not only a word: behind it is standing an alive being, full of
joy, full
of the experience, so full that he is overflowing. His words can
take many
many things towards you, crossing all the barriers; there is a
possibility
of reaching.
But when the person who has heard it from somebody else goes on
telling it
to others, he is just repeating like a parrot.

That's why, Anand Ravi, all the great teachings, all the teachings
which
were perfect become corrupted in time. They become corrupted even in
the
presence of the Master.
These are the seven steps of corruption. And if you keep alert then
something can be saved - only something, but that something is
enough. If
you can save even a seed that will do, because out of that seed the
whole
earth can be made green.